The Hot List: Volume 27

By John Beltz Snyder

March 02, 2012

Every week we sift through a truly amazing amount of “stuff” in the dozen or so hours we spend online—you know, the time spent not driving sweet cars. A lot of the cool stuff we find has to do specifically with new cars, naturally, but there’s also a huge amount of awesomeness that doesn’t completely fit in the normal Winding Road world. Once, we were in the habit of simply reading, watching, or talking amongst ourselves about this web detritus, but recently we thought it might be a good idea to start sharing it with you all. Thus, The Hot List.

We aim to bring you a list of the most interesting bits of information we run across. Ten worth-knowing-about things that may or may not be related directly to the world of cars, but all of which we think our typical enthusiast readers will be able to really dig into. We don’t know, from week to week, what will show up on this list, which is part of the fun for us and for you.

Read, enjoy, and comment. If you happen to know of something that you think would make for a good inclusion on next week’s list, drop us a line at Editor@windingroad.com.

Are you looking for an efficient and super creepy way to charge your iPhone or iPad? With the Aire Concept, you can horrify others while keeping your portable do-everything device properly juiced just by breathing. No word on whether or not it forces you to smell your own breath, but you might want to lay off the liver and fava beans just in case, Dr. Lecter.

Do you have a lot of gadgets in your car? Lifehacker offers tips to keep all the cables from your phone charger, radar detector, portable navigation system, etc., from feeling like clutter inside the cabin. Nobody wants to get tangled in a bunch of wires when they reach for the gear lever. Keep it clean.

If you’re like us, you’re used to doing a lot of traveling, and looking like a fool. And when you’re trying to make your connection in a particularly long airport concourse, a set of wheels can make the difference between making it home and spending the night in a strange town. This Scootercase converts from a rolling suitcase into a handy microscooter to help you get around, if you can resist the urge to scoot the wrong way on one of those moving walkways (“Look, I’m not moving, Mom!”).

If you like to hang out and drink beer in your big garage, you might find this ’65 Mustang pool table to be a nice addition to your (wo)man-cave. (We sit in our garage and drink, too, despite the fact that it’s full of just boxes and spiders.) Each table in this limited series has its own VIN number, and is licensed by Ford.

If you don’t have a stun gun, but still want to get someone to shut up, the National Institute Of Advanced Industrial Science And Technology in Japan has this solution, the SpeechJammer. You point it at the offending orator and pull the trigger. The device spits back what the person just said directly at them, only louder, with a delay of a few hundred milliseconds. It renders the subject incapable of coherent speech. Science, man!

Another great way to incapacitate somebody is to offer them a shot of this supremely spicy vodka. At 100,000 Scoville units, it’s enough get your blood circulating, considering a jalapeño pepper is generally just 3500 to 8000 Scoville units. We recommend pairing this potent potable with freshly sliced onions, just for good measure.

If you’re going to be whimpering like a baby after your vodka shot, you can at least look tough when you drink your coffee with this Diamond Plate Mug. Well, it’s actually ceramic, but at least it matches the bumper of your work truck.

This personal submarine not only looks like a killer whale, it can even mimic its actions, like the dramatic breach pictured above. It’s powered by a 255-horsepower supercharged Rotax engine, and comes complete with four-point racing harnesses for both passengers. At $100,000, it costs less than a Merecedes-Benz SL550 Roadster.

Photographers take note. The Lytro camera is unlike any other camera you’ve used before. It captures light fields instead of just plain old light. While that sounds sort of abstract, it means you can do things like focus the picture after you’ve taken it. Read the full review at The Verge, then try to tell us you don’t want one.